Recipe-ing with The Petrella Sisters, Authors of the Upcoming Children’s Picture Book, Recipe

Step aside, Mother—it’s Kristen’s turn to pick the recipe and make the dinner! There’s just one teensy problem: Kristen’s imagination is far more developed than her cooking skills. With ingredients ranging from 400 hot dogs and 20 bags of marshmallows to a sweatshirt and a water pistol,Recipeis the laugh-out-loud chronicle of just about everything that can go wrong in a kitchen. The recipe may not end up as delicious—or even as edible—as Kristen hopes, but that’s okay: the journey is often more fun than the destination. And there’s a hungry raccoon in the backyard who’ll eat just about anything.

What are some of your favorite recipes?
As child-like adults, we love Peanut Butter Footballs. This complex recipe requires taking a peanut butter glob and slamming it inside of a hotdog bun. As it microwaves for 15 seconds, be sure hot lava pours out on the first bite. Your lips will crust over from mild sugar burn. Serve with hot metamucil smoothie.

Do you have any favorite healthy snacks?
Raw sprouts. Hork it down and you won’t even notice you ate it.

Any advice for new at-home cooks? What should they buy?
Just get a couple of limes or whatever. Bag of dried mushrooms? Worcester? Apple Cider vinegar pills? Vanilla extract? Wax lips? Pickles? Chocolate covered chocolate? Pectin?

Our advice is to steal a fancy fast-food restaurant menu, get a feel for what “food” is. If there’s a pepper drawing next to the menu item, it means “too hot for wimps” and that’s exactly right.

Do you travel to find unusual foods for your creations?
Yes. We’ve been all over the world and sampled the best creamy corn this Earth has to offer. Most of corns were hand-creamed by lobster claws. Look, we’re pros so we strive to taste the finest parsnip nodules this world has to offer.

Do you cook on the road?
Sure. Occasionally, while shopping in a market in a foreign land, we come across a fantastic sale on lemons. And then before you know it, we’re cooking a feast of discounted fruits, usually steamed.

How does one cook on an airplane?
Heating stoves or flame ranges are not allowed on airplanes. Oftentimes, we’ve been forced to survive on a regular cold soup with a single bean and a single rice and a grain of grain. Swirl it together in a stainless steel bottle. Chug accordingly.

Which country has the best food?
England! They make the finest breakfast beans in the universe.

If someone was traveling to the moon, what would you suggest they cook there?
First, use the Sea of Tranquility as a natural fire pit. Build a biodome around the pit, pump oxygen into it, but don’t try to burn the oxygen—oxygen is just an oxidizing agent. You’ll need a fuel to create combustion, so bring some propane and light it using your lunar oxyacetylene welding torch, which comes standard on all moon transport vehicles) and shove a ripe turkey in the pit. Sear for two moon rotations.